Black Snow (excerpt)
It was late September and the first rain of the season had begun to fall the night before. The fall light made everything in every neighborhood gray as if the five boroughs had been bought out by Bellevue or St Luke’s mental wards. Even the skin of the passing yuppie mothers with their strollers had a strange gray tint. Two long time locals sat in a bar in a down town Manhattan. Inside sawdust still covered a splintering wood floor from the time of prohibition and rag time. The light was dim and came from hanging lamps over each table. Over the bar was a string with chicken bones from the First World War left by a group of soldiers who had decided to stick the remains of their dinner on the line and those who made it home would come in to collect their prize. For the others, the bones would become a kind of putrid memorial. There are about 23 still hanging on the line. It was long believed that two of the others were stolen by rats or just rotted off the line. On the wall opposite side of the room were black and white photographs of the place at the turn on the 20th century when wooden barrels still littered the cobble stone streets, which now can only be found in some parts of the city but for the most part have given way to asphalt. The air had a blue dust smell, which often makes one's nose run and the eyes slow water. No one inside seemed to notice as they told their lost stories.
The taller of the two locals, Sam sat with a long trench coat battered by too many falls and winters. Like many of those he had worked with in the past, he had a large build, like that of a former coal minor. A derby covered his long white hair that hung along the sides of an otherwise bald scalp. He drank these days mostly to forget the pains in his ribs where he had taken more than few shots from the knight sticks of one bitter cop or another during the union protests days which were far more common before McCarthy was injected into every arm of man woman and child. He remembered the days when songs like Solidarity For Ever filled the streets, just above the roar of police moved in with their sticks raised. It was thought that the cops were moonlighting as security for Union Carbide or Brooklyn Union. But the workers stood their ground, some even caressing their WWP cards which were stuck deep in their pockets. But that was before the red scare which had pulled everyone under in its relentless current and washed Sam and his wife out into the out skirts of Mexico City, along with everyone else who opposed the second world war. Despite their best efforts to disappear during those years south of the boarder, the FBI always seemed to find them. But they seemed enjoyed the ability to disappear thanks to the locals who hated the “Diablo’s” in the black suits.
But like so many other socialists after the war, Sam decided to reclaim a place for himself in the city that had been so good to him before the witch hunts of the red scare or before the unions turned on those who got them to where they were with the best deals. As was expected they were forced remain on the run once he and his wife returned to New York. But as luck would have it, Joseph McCarthy had his drunken breakdown on national television just days before Sam and his wife were sure the hammer would come down on them since they had run out of places to hide. After McCarthy and proclaimed the whole country had been taken over by “commie sympathizers” the FBI called off the search for Sam. As the years after the war faded, he took on the role of Union consultant for the last of the Unions who were ready for any fight. But with the coming of the late 1970s some twenty years five later, with the floods of deals gone bad payoffs these unions died out and so did Sam’s place in them.
Stanly sat across the table, slightly hunched over, with sunken eyes and protruding cheekbones and two gray eyes. His pea coat hung off his thin frame, giving him the appearance of a scarecrow in some lonely middle American cornfield which even the crows have forgotten about. He had lived most of his life in the area, working as a writer and a journalist for local papers all of which had closed their doors long ago. His thin white hair couldn’t hide the bald patches, which had come on with the pressure of deadlines and finding the next story from city hall. He had lost count on how many lines he put on paper about about one corrupt housing inspector or about the “fine landlords” of the city who laughed in the debris of what was called “Jewish lightning” during the old days. This or that goon for hire torching a building so these so called lords could collect the insurance money. During those years of 1970s and 80s the New York landscape was laced with the burned out remains of tenements that had once was called home by Poles, Jews and Blacks alike. All of whom had become the most honed killers of cockroaches and mice. But in the end the only thing that remained in these buildings were the charred remains of furniture and nameless ghosts who will always lookout from blackened windows. The great outrage for Stanley came after the hours of spending so much ink on a story about the number buildings owned by this or that landlord which had been burned beyond repair, only to read the next day in the official report that “no suspicious” activity was found to suspect arson. Stanley had also had forgotten the number lawsuits threatened against him for his reporting of these stories. The faces he witnessed sitting across the court rooms all looked alike in some strange way and sort of merged together in his mind to create the nightmare council that only the wealthiest cheat could afford.
As the 80s turned into the 90s even the receding working class of the city started to turn a blind eye to his work and he knew it was time to retire.
In front of them were two empty bottles and two others barely touched. Sam suddenly stated without warning
Sam: "You know I remember the first time with every woman I've ever been with, me. You see that's because it's all about anticipation then, you wonder what she looks like naked and what she likes to do. I tell you I've been with some real wild ones in my day. I once had this red headed waitress who spoke in a little girl's voice, turned my mind sideways. I had to stop. She asked me what the matter was. What was she kidding, who in their right mind wants to make it with some woman who speaks like a goddam child when you two are in bed together? I tell ya I was going after this woman for a full month before she ever noticed me, beautiful woman, long flowing red hair, muscular legs, round ass. But it was waiting for her to come out of the bathroom while I was in her bed. I was scared like a schoolboy. Christ what the hell is wrong with me."
Stanly "So what are you talking about? What kind of story is this? Anticipation about how some broad you want to make it with looks like naked, that's for amateurs. Kids worry about that kind of bullshit. Besides what the hell keeps them in the bathroom for so long, pricking and pruning, what are they goddam bonze trees? I tell you it's about what comes down the road. Where is that red head today? Probably off with some former insurance salesman, broke from this or that habit. Two or three kids stealing her beauty. Christ, you know what's on the other end of waiting for any woman you want to sleep with to come out of the bathroom? Cleaning up and going to work the next morning. The other side of sex is the rest of your life. It's only a moment in time Sam, a moment in time. My marriage was a moment in time; she now lives some where out on the Island with some cop. Where is the life in that?"
He took a drink from his beer.
Sam "The first time you wait for her to take off her blouse to see what's underneath, you're like a child on Christmas morning. You don’t exactly know what is waiting for you but you do know it will be something special, that's what I mean. Then is waiting for her to breathe those deep breaths and then is the moment of discovery. The future is death, if that's all you wait for. Who cares where that redhead is now? What do you think, I was going to marry the broad? The important thing is that I know how her body shivered when I gently moved my hand along her tender side. I know what her nipples looked like when they stiffed. And finally I remember what she looked like when she bit her lip when she came." (He takes a quick sip off his beer.) "And beside, the other side of anything is the rest of your life but it's how you want to fill your time. I remember going to Long Island when I was still working, I think was in the late 70s. I'd go into any bar back in those days and all I'd find are a bunch of broken down drunks, talking about the good ol' days. They'd talk about this or that friend who died from cocaine or cancer. Or they would go on about some goddam trip they took twelve years earlier. Nothing good will ever happen to these people again poor bastards."
(Stanly cut off a piece of Limburger cheese sitting in front of them.) "You’re a romantic Sam, those drunks that you talk about, they're in those bars 'cause they realized that their rides had to come to an end, they had to. Where else are they going to go? They're stuck. Their wives are probably bored out of their minds and cheating on them, see that's where living in the moment gets you. No plans, no nothing. Just sitting there doing nothing.
Both men sat quietly for some time finishing off their beers. The only other customers which were in the bar stepped outside for a smoke. The bartender picked up a news paper to read the stats from the ball game from the night before.
Sam: I don't accept this eye toward the grave attitude that you've adopted lately, since Anne left you. I know you writers have a fatalist view of things but Christ sometimes you sound like one of those executives about to face the chopping block because you didn't close this or that deal. This is what you sound like. I'm surprised that you're not on some kind of high blood pressure medication with how much you worry about what's waiting for you around every corner. I'd swear that you were one of those nut case preachers in Time Square screaming about god and the end of the world.
Stanly: Careful Sam don't get personal. You know, you remind me of one of those Jesus fanatics who hang out over by 42nd street, 'take no thought for the morrow', they say. This is the thinking of children, handing yourself over to chance. You know, we wake up one morning and realize that those squares we made fun of as kids were right. They actually had a vision for their future. Unlike us, they don't live in single rooms having to share a bathroom with a drunk, fat Puerto Rican who vomits in the bathtub.
Sam: Yes, but they’re up to their eyeballs in debt. And my god I've never met more paranoid people in my life. I use sit across from some of these CEOs at the negotiating table and you could see it in their eyes. They really believe that everyone around them are out to rob em blind. They believed we were nothing more than parasites looking to take everything they had. I remember reading in the paper one day that the head of Dandy pipes and plumbing had been arrested for being with a boy prostitute, kid was 15 the paper said. I sat at the same table with this man and his $3000 dollar suit, to guarantee his workers a real pay raise and force his hand in allowing his workers to strike. He had that suspicious look in his face during our entire interview shared by every con man who ever took a senior of all their money. He knew that the commissions were ready to crack down on us especially everyone looking to strike. Of course, some of the men backed management as long as it meant keeping all the victories the unions won for them at the usual price of having organized labor slandered in the news. It didn’t take long before they were sold out to automation. Robots don’t strike after all.
Stanley: Those industry bastards are the same ones that reported to the commission if I remember correctly, accused you of being a communist. Christ the FBI was after you for a while.
Sam: That’s why I had to escape to Mexico. My God I had the shits for a couple of weeks. But so what? One of the things that I saw when I was over there was that, the Indian tribes don't really see time the same way we do. Every day is one day and that death is just another transition to their lives. Sure their ideas of the after life were fuckin primitive but they took the time, to see the details of their lives, and were spent so much of their time looking to try and get insight into their lives. They did the hallucines and so on but they really were about the moment instead of worrying about what's around every friggen corner.
But you’re right, industrialist bastards, how many lives did they ruin? Do know what is like to have the FBI track your every move? Harassing all your friends, your family?
(Both men sit silently once again)
Sam: Did I ever tell you about "Lights out Bernie"?
Stanly: Yes, several times in fact.
Sam: Well you're going to hear it again. Bernie was a journeyman fighter, who knew that he would never get a chance at the heavy weight title. He had already fought too many fights, his ears were always ringing. He was going blind in one eye from taking too many shots and he had arthritis in both hands. But what made him so dangerous was that he had this lightning fast left hook which if it connected you were out, that's it Charlie.
(clearing his throat)
So his last fight was a ten rounder and he was determined not to lose. He was going up against this huge black kid out of Chicago, who was supposed to be the next big thing at the time. He towered over Bernie, you understand. Now Bernie was like 6'1" 210 pounds at the time. But this kid was a monster, 6'6" 230 pounds they say. He was supposed to be the sure thing. So the fight starts and Bernie does like he always does dancing around trying to get past this kids punches but this guy is just too strong. First round he gets knocked down. Second round he is almost knocked out of the ring. And when Bernie finally did manage to get inside and land some shots of his own, it was like they didn't do anything.
But it was right after the 7th round, Bernie sat there beaten and bloodied, his corner wanted to stop the fight but Bernie wouldn’t let them. It was then that he looked over to the other corner. The kid's jaw was gaping even after his corner placed his mouth piece back in. Now if a fighter is still fresh his bottom jaw clinches around the mouth piece. So the bell rings and before the kid knows what's happening, Bernie lands one of those lightning fast left hooks of his, right on the button. And the kid is thrown against the ropes and then falls to one knee. For the first time he was hurt and hurt bad. When he got back up, Bernie landed a right hook followed by a short left. When the young fellow tried to fight back it was the grace of god that Bernie ducked under the punch, the first time he was able to do that in years. So then Bernie landed five or six body shots before launching the most vicious upper cut that I've ever seen. It lifted the kid off his feet. The young man from Chicago landed on his knees before collapsing flat on his face.
Everyone in the place knew the fight was over. Bernie told me later that as he stood in the corner waiting for the count that no matter what happened after the fight he was going out on top in his mind. I later asked him how he knew he was going to beat the kid. Bernie said that he knew that the other fighter had his mind on the next fight, his heart just wasn't in it. So Bernie knew he had him.
You see, it’s the details, the kid tired in his corner and was probably surprised that the fight went on as long as it did. He was supposed to have been the next champ, beating Ali or Frazier or Foreman or Norton, but after that night, he never made it to the top ten. He was blindsided by a punch he never expected. Bernie, as I told you, died penny-less after his people skimmed the winnings from the pile. That’s the promoters for you.
Stanly: Yeah that's a good story, a great one in fact. But Bernie should have payed attention to the details that he was getting screwed six ways till Sunday. Now he is just another nameless asshole in Potter’s field. Want another round?
Sam nods and Stanly got up slowly and headed to the bar. Even though he and Sam had been drinking for much of the day, he was as steady on his feet as a statue. The group who stepped outside for a smoke came back in and sit down at their table arguing about something in a wave of slurred speech. Sam couldn’t figure out the nature of their argument so paid little attention to the ever-increasing volume of the fight. Soon Stanley returned to the table with a pair of beers in each hand.
Stanley: You keep bringing up my marriage, so you want to talk about hu? It’s like some goddam twisted fixation of yours. Christ. Things had gone to shit in those days. I had one thug bastard after another calling me up threatening to sue me over this or that story I wrote about some felony being committed by one or another scumbag landlord who cut off the heat in their building during the dead of winter or place attack dogs in front of their buildings to scare the shit out of the seniors who lived there. Then were the fires, all those goddam fires, almost everyday they were happening. I even had some of their hired thugs call me up at my office or at home threatening to bit the shit out of my or dear god, worse. Even had some filthy spick bastad wave a gun in my face yelling if I wrote another story about his boss he was going kill me and dump my body in fuckin landfill. Little wetback got himself killed when he tried that routine with a tenant who was a Vietnam vet. Goddam Vet, you understand. The crazy son of bitch had been shell shocked for years. Rumor has it that he used that fucker’s own piece against him, blew his brains all over the wall of the lobby in their building.
Anyway, I had bought a piece just in case anyone these schmucks tried make good on their promise. Of course they never did but I walked around in a fog for days after the gun incident. I decided to leave the city for a few days, you know to clear my head, so went down to Penn Station with a round trip ticket to the Hamptons, seemed as good place as any to get things straight. Waiting for my train, I went into the main waiting room and there she was, sitting with long brown hair and beautiful. I looked at her hand, no ring. I had never approached anyone before like this. But I walked over and sat down. I tried to catch her eye. She wasn’t trying catch mine. Probably wondering what this maniac wanted. She was reading the newspaper understand, when I asked her what time it was. “look” she said, “what do you want?” “The time” I repeated. Before she could object any further, I think she realized I was a harmless retch, old worn cloths going out of style even then. (Stanly laughed). So she relaxed and we began to talk. She was on her way to visit a friend out in Suffolk who she had been friends with since the time they were girls.
They hadn’t seen each other in years and they felt it was time to relive old times I guess. I told her my sad story and by business and that was it. Her train was called to board and maybe in a fit of madness she gave it to me, a total stranger her number. Hey we had some good years early on. I fell in love with the way she would talk about simple things, like cats and her dreams of being a mother. She was always involved with this or that movement back then. Stop the nukes or free some political prisoner. She even chained herself to a military gate to try to prevent military vehicles from leaving, only to be shipped overseas to some goddam conflict. Her spirit, her passion, holy shit I loved it and her. It was not sexual but the actions I tried to take while cowardly hiding behind my typewriter, wasting ink on yet another inspector connected to a jersey mob family. But then oh Christ oh mighty she started her crying jigs after sex. Then as time passed her fits became more intense and between she would scream about committing suicide. I didn’t know if I was her husband or her goddam therapist. She would go on and on how she didn’t understand why I would have married her. That should have been the clue of how it was all going to end, but hey I was still in love. And 10 years later, I over hear her talking to a friend from somewhere, telling her that she was falling for that fucking cop. Sure we had our rough years. Hell, maybe a plate or two was thrown across the room. But I should have known at the train station, she had that look in her eyes, of a beaten dog that was one bad day away from tearing apart her owner.
Sam: I'm going out for a cigarette.
The two men walked outside and met a wind that was just starting up. The light was a pre-storm gray. The temperature was cooler then when they first walked into the bar. Both men pulled their collars around their necks. Sam had to cup his hand over the flame of a match while they lit their cigarettes.
Sam: You’re too easily snake bit. That was always your problem. You keep building for something, or looking to the future for some reason. Tell me, what the hell do you see in the distance? It all ends the same way. Look you were taken off guard when you met your wife and as you say yourself you had some good years. Be grateful, why don’tcha?
Before Stanley can answer, they spotted Otto, an old time friend walking up the sidewalk. Otto was a former exterminator who liked to tell those who are willing to listen that he held the record for most roaches killed in a single visit. No one has ever challenged him on the claim despite the growing number of vermin every time he told the story.
Otto: I tell ya it was 500 or maybe 600 hundred yea, yea it was 600. Oh boy, when I sprayed the powder behind the stove and the fridge and behind the counters, the little bastards came runnin out trying to make it to the door or the holes in the wall but none of them made it. They all flipped over on their backs before they could make the great escape. Man it was something.
Age had taken all of his hair and most of his teeth. He chose never to wear dentures out of defiance, he had more teeth on one side of his mouth than the other which gave him a crooked smile. Otto wore a long hound's tooth coat with large holes from years of moth infestations. He scratched his arm then his neck and face as he walked up to Sam and Stanley.
Stanley: What’s with all of this scratching?
Otto: Goddam bedbugs, everyone in my building seems to have them. They started to come in when that scumbag landlord of mine started bringing in those fucking tourists. All those krauts, and heeb bastards bring them every damn place in their clothes and luggage. You’d think the city would fumigate these assholes. Holly Jesus I'm being eaten alive. I can't go home now until the exterminator shows up. Imagine that I worked 35 years in the business and now I'm calling someone to take care of my bugs. And the schmucks they have today. They spray like blind epileptics in the middle of a fit. Back when I was doin it, it was an art. Now no one gives a shit.
Sam: so where you staying now?
Otto: At my son's over on Astor place. I'm lucky he didn't marry or have kids. His place is small. Goddam bathroom is right near my bed. It's one of those pull out jobs. But its comfortable.
Sam: I tellya you're in rare form today. You're like Stanley over here when he's in a good mood. Sam laughed to himself.
Local NYU students passed by with fresh faces unaware of the locals who were displaced after their school paid off the right people. As one Mayor said, “the city is open for business. NYU posses as a college as it serves as a real estate broker. It was on their behalf that the city council opened the door to coked out landlords to throw long time tenants out with the concrete from the latest construction jobs. Low rise buildings around Washington Square park began to be used as barracks for doe eyed kids whose futures are washed down by rivers of piss in the streets paved with gold. Set sail all you good customers of the rat eat rat city that is that open for business. The towers owned by the school. that crept up like cattails in the fields of the South Jersey factories began to cast their shadows over the lower West Side as a reminder on how the right people were paid and the right desks were crawled under.
The wind began to pick up and the rain started falling at an angel. Stanley offered Otto a cigarette but Otto shook his head in rejection.
Otto: Well there is something else. Oh Jeez how I guess I can tell you, my God I was hoping that I wouldn't have to mention it to anyone.
Stanley and Sam: What, Goddamit?
Otto: You boys know that drug deal'n Santeria son of a bitch who lived my building? the landlord’s brute with the hookers coming in and out of his apartment all hours of the night?
Sam: Ya you let us know about him and the dope fiends he lets into your section.
Otto: Well I've told him if I see these pieces of shit in my hall one more time I was callin' the cops. Of course he threatens me, sayin some goon is going to break my legs or take me out or some damn thing. In either case, this morning I had to go to my room to pick up some clothes by the door. So I walk up to my section and two burn-outs come stumblin' out the door, cooked out of their minds. Somehow they were able to catch the elevator before the door closed. I had just had it.
So I see him just standin' in the hallway, right? So I yell at him 'Hey! What'd I tell you asshole?' He turns to me and says 'who do you think your talken to white boy?' So this fuckin' gorilla comes charging at me with his goddamn cane and without thinking I grabbed this heavy lamp that was on the table in the hall and cracked it over his head before he could throw a punch. He goes down, blood gushing out of his mouth, ears and nose, right. Face down. I turned him over and put my ear to his chest and nothin'. No heartbeat. So I took the lamp to the bathroom and washed it off as fast as I could. My neighbor Loretta came walking in the section just as I was pluggin' in the lamp. She took one look at the body and then turned to me.
Sam: So what did you do?
Otto: I blamed the whole thing on those two junkies who were in my section. But I don't think she heard me she was too busy screaming and praying to Jesus for Christ sakes. I helped her back to her room. Then I think she blacked out because her eyes went blank and the screaming stopped. I laid her on the bed. Her breathing was violent. Before anyone else could finger me for this murder I took off.
Stanley: Oh for Christ sake Otto you really screwed up big here. The cops are going to be looking for you. You better get off the street before you get picked up. Men our age don’t last very long in prison.
Sam: I don’t suppose your son knows what.
No of course I didn't tell him. I can't get him involved. And now I'm sure the police are looking for me, if Loretta ever comes around then you are up the creek.
Stanley and Sam dropped their cigarettes and crushed them under the heal of their shoes. Stanley signaled that they should go back inside the bar. The door opened, and a young couple came stumbling out into the rain, laughing the laugh of a blackout. Neither seemed to notice the rain at first but then the guy looked up before grabbing a newspaper out of the trash putting it over their heads cursing the whole time. The couple scurried into the crowd and disappeared. Stanley, Sam and Otto went in the bar noticing their beers were still there and to their surprise, their seats were still empty. Otto walked up to the bar and signaled his ordered of a round then took his beers to the table before Stanley or Sam could say anything, Otto blurted out some sense of remorse, “the thing was that the management kept him in a room with black mold growing on the walls and gave him no bed, sorry SOB slept on the floor. I’m surprised he didn’t die sooner.” Otto then went silent.
Stanley filled the moment of silence, “The landlord brought him in to make your lives miserable. Do you really think he was thought of as more than a useful mut? If he choked on rat shit they wouldn’t care. I doubt any tears were shed of him”
Back at the hotel that Otto called home for years, the police and EMS workers walked around Ray's body which was laying a pool of coagulated blood. A junkie who was looking for a fix walked in unexpectedly before being arrested as a suspect. The junkie pleaded to be let go.
One of the cops, a skinny new-be who had only been on the force for a few months, coughed then spit in an attempt to get rid of the the putrid taste that came from the smell of decaying flesh.
An older officer, much burlier than the new brass held onto the junkie who was trying to squirm himself free. “Where do you think you’re going asshole? We gotta ask you a few questions over heah.”
The Junkie kept trying to pry himself free but soon tired. He couldn’t offer any more of a fight than that of a rag doll. His head began to sag down towards his chest and all he could do is except his defeat. “I don't know nothing. I just came up here to speak with Ray. I don’t know nothing man, I'm sick just let me go.” He then tried coughing in an attempt to gain sympathy from his capture. But the cop only grew annoyed by the performance being played out in front of him. “Yea I'll let you go - right into the tombs if you don't tell me what I want to know. If you want to make this difficult, we could always lose your paperwork, forget we have you, maybe five or six days, you follow me? So who would want to kill this piece of shit?”
The junkie began to drool as snot ran from his nose. A pain in his abdomen which he felt much of the day only grew worse until he clutched his stomach and bent over in agony. Soon he was only able to beg feebly through clinched teeth. “I tellya man I don't know! Just let me go!” But his sobs fell on the deaf ears of the law. The cops dragged him out of the section and away from prying eyes. If he wasn’t going to confess when asked, they knew how to make the caller talk, with the help of a knight stick.
Two detectives are questioned the only neighbor and witness to the attack. She had recovered from shock well enough to speak with a thick Brazilian accent. She had a small piece of cloth around her nose and mouth as the smell of the corpse found its way into her room. She was still shaking from fear not only of the police but she held the belief that looking at a dead body outside of a funeral was bad luck.
Detective one: So you say it was your neighbor who cracked this guy with the lamp over there. Did you see him actually strike this gentleman?
BN: Si, I know it was him, I saw him putting plug back into the wall. They don't like each other. Always fighting. No good.
Detective 2 ( he spit on the floor to get the taste of the smell out of his mouth.): So what is your neighbors name, give us a name.
BN: His name is Otto. He was always very nice to me. Very good, I can't believe he would do this, horrible thing. I think he has bit of the devil in him though.
Detective 1: Does he have any relatives or anyone he knows who lives around here.
Detective2 (giving his partner a quick wink):Don't bullshit us we have I.C.E on the speed dial.
BN: No, no I no bullshit he has a son who lives een midtown I tink 43rd or something. Hee's last name is Berger. Look on his mail slot it there, 411.
Before they could question the shaken neighbor any further, the landlord walked into the section, wearing sweat pants, a strained tee shirt and worn loafers. He looked down at the body which laid in the middle of the hallway, with remorseless eyes. He nudged the body with his foot right before the EMS workers lifted the corpse and placed it on a stretcher and wheeled it out of the section. The landlord approached the detectives in an attempt to stop them from asking any further questions. Word of a murder being spread throughout the area was bad for business. He did his best to escort the two detectives to his office where he had a brown paper bag that could turn a murder into a suicide or death by natural causes. Upon seeing him, the Brazilian slammed her door shut. The detectives and the manager went down stairs for a private talk in the office.
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